Of Dead Men
by faorism
Summary: Non-AU, past Gaius/Geoffrey. Under Uther's orders and with Gaius' assistance, Geoffrey collects the magic texts in his library for destruction.


_Title_: Of Dead Men  
_Series_: Merlin.  
_Genre and Pairing_: Gen. Past Gaius/Geoffrey.  
_Words/Progress_: 750; Complete.  
_Notes_: G. Written for LJ's **marguerite_26**'s one plot, many pairings experiment.  
_Summary_: Under Uther's orders and with Gaius' assistance, Geoffrey collects the magic texts in his library for destruction.

* * *

In his mind and heart, Geoffrey knows there had to have been a time when to enter the library meant the taste of soft leather and worn parchment on his tongue; there had to have been. He knows there _will_ be a time when turning a page does not mean breathing in the screams of a little girl; the confused determination of a few scared men with swords. But for now, the books pulse with a life the type of which they have never seen: the busy energy of calculations and histories and ink and honest laws, lost—replaced—dead or dying. It sickens him; all of Camelot sickens him. A person with his disposition should not have to endure destruction of this caliber (who _does_ have the ability to take such ugliness is beyond Geoffrey's ability to name). It should not be like this. It shouldn't.

Nor... nor should he add to the horror, but he must. His part is blasphemous to his spirit, to his happiness and to the duties he had so long ago sworn to; but even as terror fills his mouth like bile, he pulls a tome down from a shelf and... tosses it into the makeshift cart, already half-full, at his side. The spine cracks open—the sound like a hiss of a pyre—and the pages limply fold under the weight of their cover as it lands. It's just one of a few score of books, just one... but Geoffrey grieves its loss sourly: it is... it had been a healing book for various and often lethal ails of youth.

Before he has time to register the amount of sick children he has just sentenced to death alongside that single text, it is lost beneath the nimble cloth cover of _Asmal's Expansive Anatomy of Shifters_. His mouth twitches loosely but he is able to glance up with only passivity in his expression. He meets tired eyes (everyone has tired eyes these days), and Geoffrey's movements are arrested. He is sure that he appears to have only paused for a minute break, but internally, the tenseness of his muscles seize his senses.

In that moment, he sees an echo of a man he once knew, can almost hear the limpid gasps of a lover he once held... but only Gaius—the one still alive and respected by the king—dead air and a cart of now-forbidden texts keep Geoffrey company in the narrow aisle.

Gaius patiently keeps his eyes steady as he blindly reaches for three rolls of parchment and slips them into the cart. Geoffrey might like to say Gaius understands why he is staring, or that he understands why he's staring, but they are two slowly graying men who breathe death everywhere in a city that used to inspire greatness: there is no longer time for trivial things like lies and denial. (But... there is always a place for deceit in silence, and this is something that Gaius takes to heart and Geoffrey deeply appreciates. Because if Gaius never answers the breathless, final _Am I not correct in saying you're sorry for what you've done? ...Gaius?_, Geoffrey can still imagine he will receive an honest _of course_ in return.)

Three tomes and two additional scrolls later and Gaius still allows Geoffrey this. He feels like he should say something. _I do miss you_, or _you're a monster_, or _I can't stand it anymore. The... the pages smell of dead men. Of ember, rotting smoke and the three men who sold healing salves next to the eastern wall, along with the countless others whose ashes chokes the very air of Camelot. The_ stench_ of it has infected everything: the water wells, the livestock, the skin of peasant and nobleman alike; there truly is no escape, not even here in the dusty musk of the library. I want it to stop but I_—Geoffrey should say something, but he doesn't. Instead, he watches familiar hands work—steady, bland—until Gaius bows his head in a noncommittal nod, saying "Onto the next row."


End file.
